


Roses

by Koevch



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Child Death, Childhood, Childhood Memories, Childhood Sweethearts, Drabble, F/M, Original Character Death(s), Teen Years: 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2013-09-07
Packaged: 2017-12-25 22:07:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/958147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Koevch/pseuds/Koevch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I wish," she finally whispers, "that you hadn't killed it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roses

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I am not associated in any way with the Star Trek franchise. This is a fan work written for fun, not profit, and Pavel Chekov is copyrighted to the franchise.

"I brought you a flower." He holds it out with a smile and looks up at her through thick fringes of lashes, but for the moment she is occupied taking the rose, watching it with her lips parted, sending white puffs into the cold winter air. 

Her hair is dark, shocking brown against the backdrop of the snow on the empty playground, a little darker beneath her crown of melted snowflakes. Her cheeks are flushed in the cold. She doesn’t look like somebody who’s dying.

She slowly turns the stem in her fingers, investigating the folds and layers in the pale, half-opened blossom. “I wish,” she finally whispers, “that you hadn’t killed it.”

He has to be strong, but his eyes fill with tears as he takes her weighless hand in his own. Even as he holds it as firmly as her malaise will allow, she’s slipping away, and he can do nothing. He can’t keep her anchored in the living world. None of them can.

**

The snow doesn’t crunch under his feet as he walks, as if the world is holding vigil. She would appreciate the tiny footprints the sparrows have left around his own; she loved birds. He remembers how she used to talk about what it must feel like to fly as the cold air stings his face… to soar at the edge of existence and remember that you are alive.

He can’t feel the stems in his fingers, only the cold indifference of the gray sky and the soft breeze. He sets the roses in the snow over her grave, and, for a moment, they are back on the playground, watching their breath, squinting at the sky as they search for God.


End file.
